Giving Up on Misogyny

I’m not particularly fond of talking about the manosphere on this blog, or speaking on its related ideas and concepts, of which misogyny is one. It can be an interesting exercise on occasion, but I had believed it unwise to spend too much time and energy on such matters. That’s why I only posted about them once a month (at most). Unfortunately, the recent violence in California has made misogyny seem much less distant and much more relevant than it used to be. Thus, rather than waiting till next Monday to do a “manosphere” post, I’ll indulge myself and write a series of successive entries over the next few days to help work through my own emotions and reactions to this tragedy. I’ll begin with an abjuration of the misogyny Elliot Rodgers represented.

But first, a confession: I sort of bought into some of that misogyny stuff when I was younger.

Not that much younger—it was just a few years ago, in fact. It was well after I’d grown out of my angsty “internet fights all day erry day” troll teenager phase and had begun advancing my career, along with growing more satisfied and confident in myself. And it was never anything really crazy, either, before you guys get worried. Looking back on my old Livejournal entries, it was more of a sarcastic in-joke among me and my friends than anything else. See, whenever I’d make a criticism or (mild) joke at the expense of feminism, or even just women in general, I’d tag the entry as “Gunlord the misogynist.” For instance, I once saw a goofy flyer about some wacky feminist “radical witches and faeries” organization, so I made a “Gunlord the misogynist” LJ post making fun of it. That’s the sort of “misogyny” I engaged in, tongue-in-cheek more than anything else.

At that time, however, I was also growing more comfortable as a bachelor and figuring out what sorts of people I liked associating with. I came to the conclusion that I generally liked hanging around men more than women. I’m not gay, and I have many female friends online, but I’ve also had several bad experiences with women and found I was more comfortable and less stressed-out in primarily male communities. I made a “Gunlord the misogynist” entry about that, and I naturally got into quite a bit of hot water before I friendslocked my journal, as I probably should have done when I first made it. And I’ll also be frank, some of what I said in that old, ill-conceived post still applies to my personal life, as I’ve written here. While, ironically enough, my opinion of women in general is considerably more positive nowadays, I’m still content being single and, at the moment, generally prefer hanging around communities that skew male (The Castlevania Dungeon, for instance, is mostly male, though several of my moderator colleagues are ladies).

All that made and still makes me a fellow you’d think, at first glance, to be a good fit for the misogynists, within and without the “manosphere.” Indeed, I’m the sort they *ought* to be recruiting–by their own admitted standards. Young, in reasonably good health, happy being single, uninterested in a relationship, and definitely not some “pedestalizer” of women or fervent believer in feminism. You’d have a pretty hard time pegging a happy, accomplished, well-adjusted bachelor like me to be a “white knight” or “mangina.” I’m the exact type of young man their movement claims to represent and would likely rely on…

But it’s too late now. They’re not getting a recruit. Just the opposite.

In the interest of honesty, I’ll aver that I’d already rejected “organized” misogyny long before Elliot Rodger had even started attention-whoring on Youtube. I’d browsed some of their more popular sites both in college and during my brief ‘misogynist’ phase, like the Roissy/Heartiste blog; I was too unimpressed by the racism and butthurt whining to give much credence to their theories about women. If the blog owner wanted rant about non-whites being “orcs” and if his commenters wanted to cry about being “butthexed by the fed lzolllzzzz,” that was certainly their right. But I had no reason to take *anything* they said on *any* subject seriously. So, even at a point in life where I *might* have been convinced of *some* hardcore misogynist doggerel, the tinfoil-hat race-baiting and conspiracy theories managed to warn me away from all that nonsense.

But, as you might be able to surmise, I was more indifferent to that sort of thing than outrightly opposed to it. That has changed, thanks to the Isla Vista murders.

Some folks, particularly from the “manosphere,” have tried to pass that off as proof this weirdo wasn’t actually a misogynist. They also claim it’s unfair that four dead men are being ignored. I can muster a bit of sympathy for the latter point; I don’t believe any victim deserves to be forgotten on account of their gender–or race, or anything else. But claiming he wasn’t a misogynist? Utter silliness. Read his manifesto: He talks about how evil women are and how they need to be punished. That’s textbook misogyny. Now, you could say he hated men every bit as much. And he did. He also ranted about how useless and inferior men of other races were. But…that’s the whole point.

He was a misogynist AND a misandrist. In fact, when you get right down to it, his toxic hatred of his fellow men stemmed from his misogyny (not the other way around), because he was angry at them for having sex with women.

So I—as a man—look at that and think, “Why should I have any truck with that whole misogyny business?” Somebody who hates women ends up hating men too, and also ends up actually killing even more men than women! As a man, it seems that misogyny, as exemplified by Elliot, will end up hurting me or men like me as well. Therefore, it’s in my rational self-interest to reject it. That is, ironically enough, the same rational self-interest misogynists appeal to in trying to get men to hate women.

“Join us,” they cry, “fight feminism with us! Blame women and feminism for all your problems!” Well, the problem is, as indifferent as I am to women, I’m a man myself. I’m not going to subscribe to an ideology that seems to lead its adherents to kill men. And is feminism much of a threat to me? Nope. The “kill all men” types of feminist loonies pose virtually no danger; Elliot Rodgers killed 4 times as many men as Valerie Solanas did. I’m not married, so it’s quite unlikely I’ll be hit by “feminist” divorce laws. The way I live my life and the composition of my IRL social circles makes it extremely unlikely I’ll be the victim of a “feminist” false rape accusation. And I’m not sexually frustrated, either; “feminism” poses no threat at all to me enjoying the sorts of porn I like. Snuff, “loli” and things like that disgust me, so feminist disapproval of them doesn’t hurt me a bit.

All in all, the worst thing feminists have done to me is spam my Livejournal. Misogynists, on the other hand, seem to be after my life, and the lives of my male friends. Guess which of those people I’m going to consider my enemies?

So that’s why I’m formally and publicly abjuring misogyny, right here, right now. I was never a misandrist. As I’ve said repeatedly above, I’ve always gotten along with other guys, of all races, in fact. But it seems to me that shunting misogyny would make me even less of a misandrist. Being cool with women, after all, would make it easier to get along with men, since so many of ‘em like women. So I think that’s precisely what I’m gonna do.

From this day forwards, I’m not even going to make jokes about being a misogynist. I proclaim to all the world my rejection of the ideology, and the firm assertion that I have absolutely *nothing* to do with it.

I’ll also make it clear that I’m not an MRA or a MGTOW, or part of the MRM or MHRM or whatever, and I’ll not make any more jokes about those scenes either. I believe in being charitable, so I’ll concede that many, perhaps most of the above groups might well be reasonable people who completely disown Elliot Rodgers. Perhaps the same could be said for much of the “manosphere.” The thing is, none of those groups have much to offer me, for reasons I may explain in a future blogpost. There’s enough misogyny present in all of them, however, to make an open disassociation a good idea. I was never a part of them in the first place anyways, so it’s certainly no loss for me. Just ensuring that nobody gets the wrong impression I ever was.

And, if any manospambot or misogynist decides to wander in here and call me a “mangina,” or insinuate I’m just trying to curry favor with “feminist overlords” in the hope of “getting laid,” well, nope. You’re a fool. I haven’t cared about “female approval” for a while, and I still don’t. I’m merely acting in my own best interest. As I said above, misogyny offers me *nothing* and could conceivably threaten me someday—at least more than the feminists would be able to. Therefore, I’m going to regard it as something to fight against. And if that means fighting you—or anyone else—as well…so be it.

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16 comments

I am a feminist and not sure what to comment here, but you seem to have such a rational and logical viewpoint of the whole situation.

The manosphere runs purely on irrational hatred of women when it comes down to it. I have looked at sites like Voice for Men and Spearhead and it is scary how much these men hate me on their sites for something as silly as my gender.

George Sodini was a misogynist killer as well and the manosphere tried to denounce him as being influenced my misogyny. It is like when skin head kills/assaults a Jew or person of color and White Nationalist say there ideology had nothing to do with it. The site stormfront is known as a hate site.

So why the debate over manosphere blogs that rob young women of their lives. I once read an article over at Voice of Men over a female Yale college student that had recently died and had an essay about encouragement and about how all people had a future in front of them.

Well, this Voice for men writer said that it didn’t matter if the girl died because she was entering her late 20’s and would be deemed unattractive to men. To him (and many commentators) the only thing the girl had to offer was her beauty to men, nothing else.

They completely robbed a young woman’s dignity by claiming she had no purpose even if she had lived

You’re welcome to comment here and I’m happy for the compliment (Just made a small correction to your post). Yeah, those guys are an ugly bunch. I don’t have much more patience for them than I do for the White Nationalists you mention, and that I described in my post.

Anyways, though, just keep in mind that I’m not a feminist and not everyone here is, either. I can tolerate dissenting viewpoints, but I expect courtesy to my friends regardless of gender, so don’t post anything that encourages hatred against men, please. The same applies to anyone trying to drum up hatred against women, obviously. 😉

I remember your post about the “herbivore men” of Japan and MGTOW and I can’t help but contrast them to Rodger. I’m not sure he had any way to measure his self-worth other than sex. And that’s really reminding me of my life a few years ago.
I was not terribly aware of the MRA movement until much later, but when I was 20/21/22, I was desperate for romance, and this wasn’t helped by the high number of women in my social circle and my friend group. Seeing young women I was attracted to getting together with abusive drug dealers for the third time in a year didn’t help. I thought of myself as repeatedly “Friendzoned,” and it wasn’t hard to feel snubbed and worthless, and then jealous and angry. I think, if I’d encountered MRA at some point during this, I might have become as nuts as Rodger was.
To this day, I’m not sure quite what saved me, but by 24, I’d mostly snapped out of it, but I’m not sure why or how. I just wasn’t a sex-centered or frustrated as I had been.
I suspect the biggest single factor was that I had things in my life that helped me feel worthy without any relationship to my sex life. Writing and cooking, and then jewelry making, gave me something I could point to as an accomplishment that wasn’t related to my penis.
And now, even though I’m in a romantic relationship, all of those things remain important to me. If my relationship breaks up, I’ve got cooking and writing and jewelry-making, not to mention a budding career. All of those things are shared with my lady, but they can be mine alone. I think that’s what a lot of incels and MRAs – and possibly some of the misandrist radical feminists – are missing: having something other than arguing on the internet, all day erryday, to keep the arguments and uncertainty and insecurity and rage from grinding a hole in their souls.
I’ve heard from an extremely feminist friend who gardens that having non-political hobbies, and keeping them separate from politics, can help keep the politics from taking over, especially because she was in regular contact with people who had all kinds of opinions on all kinds of things, and they could bond over a common interest. And suddenly the people who aren’t like you, who are on the opposite side of a divide, aren’t those HORRIBLE NO-GOOD PEOPLE, but those nice fellows who are sometimes a little different, sometimes a little kooky, but hey, they told you about a neat trick for getting spice into ground beef, or a way to make brownies without eggs or butter, and they’re still human.

Great comment, brother. Thanks very much for dropping by, and I’m glad you liked my first MGTOW post, too!

I think you and your friends’ advice is spot on. The problem with Elliot, and a lot of the spree killers I’ve heard of, is that they often don’t have any hobbies or interests at all. The only thing they have is women, they define themselves by women, and thus grow obsessed over their lack of women. For a man who’s actually accomplished in some field or another, however, lack of sex/romance is no big deal.

I suppose you actually have to be *good* at those hobbies for them to have a positive effect on your psyche, though. I’ve met more than a few MGTOWs who rant about how great their life is without women and how much cool stuff they have going on, but they never shut up about women, and when you take a closer look at their “accomplishments,” they’re almost always totally mediocre.

I dunno, I think my accomplishments in all my hobbies are fairly mediocre. With the jewelry, mostly I’ve made little sculptures or a few things that I like to wear, or give as gifts. With the cooking, I’m still learning, and anything involving meat is something I have problems with. My peanut butter cookies, or any other recipe, are very unlikely to win any awards. With the writing, I haven’t finished a story in a long time.
And none of that really matters to me that much. With the jewelry, I make things I like, and a little wire bonsai sculpture that sits behind the sink. With the cooking, I hold that feeding people is an act of love, and so I love people with food instead of trying to win competitions. Food’s the ultimate egalitarian world anyway – it’s truly an arena where anyone can win, so why bother trying to beat the next guy, just make the brownie the way you want them to be made! For writing, I explore interesting ideas and stretch my brain in interesting ways, even if I haven’t quite published anything yet. I’m still writing things I like to read, and it’ll happen someday, I’m still young.
It’s hard to phrase, but I get to measure my own happiness rather than anyone else telling me whether I’m worthy or not. It feels like… I set my own worth. Let the MGTOWs be happy with their mediocrity, if it makes them happy, the problem is that their lives are grounded in their opposition to women and society! I’m saying that grounding a life on what someone likes to do, rather than opposition to society or democracy or patriarchy, would make these guys a lot happier, even if their accomplishments are fairly mediocre by the standards of the whole world.
And glad to be here. I’ve enjoyed your Manosphere Mondays posts, and I look forward to seeing where you’re going with this.

Hm, you know, that’s a good point. I think you’re right, it’s not necessarily one’s skill in some hobby or pursuit that’s important, but their orientation towards it and the wider world. A guy who’s just okay (or even not very good) at anything he does but doesn’t blame others for his shortcomings is likely better off in terms of happiness than even an expert in a field that sets himself in opposition to everyone else.

I must say it’s refreshing to hear someone talk positively about being single and celibate. I’m a bit of a WGHOW myself (no resentment or dislike towards men, just don’t want to go that road again) and I agree it’s all about finding a sense of self worth outside of being in a relationship. I just wish this was more socially accepted, it seems to me that unless you’re in a relationship or actively seeking one people think you’re strange. Which is stupid as in reality I’ve known loads of people who haven’t met anyone special and probably never will, it’s only in cheesy rom coms that all the nice people get paired off by the end.

The single life is really not that bad. The thing is to recognize that it works for *you,* and not the whole world. Elliot’s problem was that he couldn’t understand it would have worked for him, so he grew unnecessarily angry at those who chose a different path through life (which didn’t make them more or less lucky than him, it was just a matter of different choices).

It’s the same problem one sees among MGTOWs, though certainly to a lesser extent and in the opposite direction. It’s not that they’re single–that’s fine. It’s that they incessantly hate on people who aren’t and can’t even comprehend that people in different life circumstances could be acting rationally in finding a mate.

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